EDITORIAL
After eight months of crisis in public hospitals, the government presented its plan for the hospital on Wednesday. Proposals from Prime Minister Edouard Philippe and the Minister of Health, Agnes Buzyn who have not had the expected success with key stakeholders, not convinced by the executive. Yet the government has changed its tune according to our editorialist Nicolas Beytout, director of the newspaper Opinion, trying to respond immediately to the crisis in the hospital.
"Finally a shock treatment, after two shots for nothing or almost! Two plans that promised solutions for tomorrow, a horizon 2022, but nothing or not much for today. What is certain is that the government understood that it had to hit hard, that it was necessary to put the means, put them for all, and do it right away.His plan targets a little all the health professions: nurses, caregivers, doctors young and old, with bonuses (some targeted in the Paris region, where there is a problem of cost of living, which is smart) There are also changes in status that will impact positively the careers of hospital doctors, and it will be applicable right away.
Fear of the December 5 protests
It was both the realization that making big plans, great promises over several years, had become inaudible, almost unbearable. But it is also the fear that played: that of the demonstrations of December 5. It was absolutely necessary to immediately provide an answer to the crisis of the hospital and give pledges to health professionals to minimize the effect contagion, transmission of the virus of anger and the junction with the strikers of the SNCF. This is to bring down the fever in the immediate future.
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There is also a long-term treatment. The government pledges to increase hospital budgets by 1.5 billion euros and to guarantee them over several years, until the end of the five-year period. And then there is of course the most awaited announcement: that of the recovery by the State of part of the debt of hospitals, for an amount of 10 billion euros. It's spectacular, it's massive, and if we hear the hospital staff, it looks perfectly painless, when it is not the case.
Debt, this long-term illness
The debt of public hospitals is already included in the accounts of the famous 3% of Maastricht. On the other hand, sorry, but ironing the debt of the hospital to the state, that changes everything. Today, it is the hospital that has to repay this debt. It does it like any other business, taking on its revenues, its turnover, and managing better to create room for maneuver. Tomorrow, it will no longer be the hospital that will pay for being in debt, not even the institutions that have been bad managers. No, it will be you and me, our taxes, our taxes. It's odd how the French are insensitive to this long-term illness that is debt. Weird that they neglect it to the point of adding, and they do not even think about healing.